Familiar Wildflowers
by yllw-drgnfly
Summary: Kagome is not Kikyo; she knows this, knows she cannot be Kikyo because she is already Kacy—was Kacy, but is now Kagome, has taken another Kagome's place in this odd world she thought she knew. (She is wrong; she never knew this world at all.) SI-as-Kagome.
1. Step One

**_INUYASHA is owned by the people who own INUYASHA which is not me or anyone I know or anyone who knows anyone I know. That which is not a part of the INUYASHA canon universe is most-likely mine, but is probably inspired by a myriad of different places and things because none of my ideas are really new at all but whatever. INUYASHA is not mine. I am not writing this for any sort of profit. The end._**

The morning of May fourteenth dawns bright and clear, without even a single cloud in the sky above the Higurashi shrine. Sunlight slips in through the smallest cracks between the curtains and dyes every room it touches in shades of gold. Birds sing their joy, for a new day has risen and the world still retains its sense of peace and tranquility.

Meanwhile, I simply turn my back on the window and curl into a tight ball, stubborn in my desire for time to simply halt its forward march. The weight of the day ahead feels like a physical thing, weighing me down like a wet woolen blanket draped across my shoulders. Just the thought of moving, of forcing my limbs to pull me from my bed, makes my stomach twist and knot and rise up into my throat, choking every drop of oxygen from my lungs. I could barely even sleep the night before, plagued as I was with worry and doubt about this very day, this very morning.

Two separate alarm clocks cry out at the same time a voice from downstairs calls, "Kagome, time to get up or you'll be late! You, too, Souta!" The only acknowledgment kaa-san receives is Souta's sleep-addled grunts of either resistance or acceptance (it's hard to tell which).

Rebelliously, I wait four more minutes before scraping together just enough strength to get out of bed.

Bustling about my room wakes Souta from his dozing and a sharp kick to the bottom of his door as I pass it on my way to the bathroom brings him fully awake. I shower until the hot water runs cold and the chill reaches deep into my bones and shocks my system. Souta is grumpily muttering about females who take their time in the bathroom, but I pay him no mind as I wrap myself in a bathrobe. I only leave the steam-dense room when my hair is combed through and woven into a thick black braid down the center of my back, still dripping water.

The dining room becomes eerily quiet as I descend the stairs, fussing slightly with my sleeves; I pay my family no mind, already knowing what I'll tell them when they ask. I take my seat across from ojii-sama and inhale the scent of my kaa-san's miso soup that I love. Truthfully, I hadn't expected to like the food here—I was notoriously picky Before, to the point that my father and I used to argue about how I would ruin the food he would make me by picking out the bits of squash and olive and cucumber—but there really is nothing like kaa-san's cooking.

"Kagome, dear, what happened to your uniform?" Kaa-san's voice breaks the silence of the room just as I pick up my chopsticks and open my own mouth to utter an "itadakimasu". Instead, I glance at the woman who, I'll admit, looks good for her age, and hum under my breath.

"I'm not going; I'll be staying home to train for the day. My kyudo still needs a bit of work, does it not, ojii-sama?" My eyes flick towards ojii-sama briefly, but I don't give him the chance to get a word in. "Besides, it's my birthday so it won't hurt if I just skip the day, right? Just call and tell the school I've come down with pneumonia or something, kaa-san."

While everyone digests my words, I finally whisper my thanks for the food and pick up my bowl. The food is so very good, but today, it seems, my stomach won't allow me to choke down more than the miso soup and a few bites of fish and rice. As I'm taking my last slurp of soup, Souta decides to be the one that breaks this bout of awkward silence.

"So, does this mean I get to skip school on my birthday too?"

There is a certain sense of ominous unease that permeates the Bone-Eater's Well, a darkness that has penetrated the wooden structure which houses the old hole and leaks out into the world even as I stand before the entranceway.

I am as prepared as I can make myself, armed with a sword taken from ojii-sama's storage and the bow I use for kyudo practice, a quiver of arrows slung across my back. The sword was not all I took from the storage room, however, for i thought I would need some small amount of armor as well. As such, I am equipped with shin and wrist guards of matching design: a base of violet-dyed leather overlain with strung-together metal panels that are likely to be iron or some other compound, all tied and secured by braided ropes of very strong silk or another similar fabric, dyed in a lighter golden-yellow. The armguards have taken time to adjust to, but they move fairly well, especially in the wrist which I am still surprised about. The only other piece of armor I chose from the collection in storage is a breastplate that an archer would use which covers more than half of my upper torso but, thankfully, does not inhibit my range of motion with my arms.

I check my gear twice over to make sure everything is as I want it, then check a third time to make sure it's as I need it. As I am tightening the ties of my left wrist guard, I hear the scuff of tiny shoes on sandy gravel.

"Buyooo-- eh?" Souta's call cuts short as he sees me with my metal additions and an adorably confused and maybe even creeped out look shows onhis face. "What the-- why are you dressed like that, Nee-chan? And why are you going in the," he pauses just to shudder, "the old wellhouse?"

My eyebrow raises at his obvious fear of the well. We have lived by it all our lives, why would he be so frightened when he knows not what lies within? I shake my head and let out a soft sigh, turning my body sideways to face him somewhat.

"I saw Buyo run inside si I'm going to catch him. The armor is just in case he gets fussy. Don't want to be sliced to bits by his claws." The lies come easily and slip from my tongue with no hint of ill; my brother believes it all, just as my family believed earlier.

'So easy to fool; do they even notice that something is wrong?'

"W-Well, just be careful, nee-chan, cuz I'm pretty sure that thing is haunted…" Souta shudders again in fear and gives the wellhouse another uneasy look before turning away and heading off, probably to school. I raise my hand in a casual wave as he goes, but I don't think he sees it.

When I turn back towards the eerie building, I hear a muffled cat's meow which brings a sigh from my lungs. I am as ready as I will ever be and so I reach out and open the sliding door. A smell like the faint scent of old blood and dying things wafts towards me, but there is no room for second guesses at this point.

Buyo lays comfortably on the edge of the sealed well, gazing at me with too-intelligent feline eyes. He beckons me forth with a twitch of his stubby tail. I walk inside, back straight with purpose, and close the door behind me, only leaving it open enough for the cat to escape when things get hectic. I make straight for the well, taking three steps down and skipping the last one to land straight onto the dirt floor. Buyo stands up and stretches, pacing in a circle until I get closer to the well before suddenly making a break for it.

In no amount of time at all, I am left alone by the old Bone Eater's Well.


	2. Step Two

'Somehow, I thought something would have happened by now,' I think to myself a minute or two later. As time passes with no sign of Mukade Joro, I grow relaxed and then bored. The bow slung over my shoulder clatters slightly as I lean back against the sealed well, just waiting--waiting for my fate, my destiny, to come dig its claws into me.

Another few minutes pass of me rechecking my gear when I pause at a low, scratchy sound. It is silent for a moment before the noise comes again, a little louder and more insistent. At the third scraping sound, I am able to pinpoint the source as coming from the well itself and I quickly push away from it and spin around in time to see the lid rattle slightly. I squint my eyes in the dim lighting, but the paper seals plastered over the top of the wood are still intact, confusing me.

Was Mukade Joro not supposed to burst through the flimsy seals with little to no trouble? I recall this point being much more…dramatic. Frowning, my shoulders relax somewhat and I take a step closer to the well. The scraping and rattling become louder, but it's still fairly weak and muffled.

Something is off and I am both worried and curious about what it could be; I reach out and peel back the corner of a seal, yanking my hand back when there is a loud thump from the other side. My heart is racing at this point, but I am so very excited, so very anxious to get this part over with.

I rip the rest of the seal off.

Another two thumping sounds as I reach for another paper cause me to hesitate. I take a breath in and hold it, my opposite hand gripping tightly to the hilt of my sword.

I rip that seal off too, and then another and another.

Soon, I am startled into taking a couple of steps back by five sharp points piercing through one of the last two papers. The pierced seal turns to ash and I draw my blade.

When Mukade Joro finally breaks through the thick oaken lid of the well, I am momentarily stunned by her appearance. She is larger than I could have imagined to begin with, but beyond that, she is not what I expected at all. In the anime I remember, she is nearly whole and complete by the time she comes to kidnap me (Kagome), but right now…

Mukade Joro is entirely skeletal, only a few bits and pieces of flesh hanging from bone with the accompanying scent of death and decay. Her ribcage rattles as if she were trying to catch her breath but she has no lungs, no organs at all in fact. She has to drag herself up and over the lip of the well, but I am too far for her to reach easily by now. She rasps out something unintelligible and extends a clawed arm out towards me, the rest of her long body slithering slowly from the depths of the abyss.

My throat constricts and I find it exceptionally difficult to swallow as she towers above me, all but filling the entire space of the wellhouse. Her skeletal hand grabbing at my katana startles me into motion and I fruitlessly attempt to pull it back from her. Her grip is probably the only strong thing about her at this point and I'm unable to free the blade without breaking it; I let go. With an annoyed shriek, she flings it away from the both of us and tries to grab me again, but fate or destiny or something is playing against me.

I had thought Buyo had escaped the rickety building long ago, but he appears from seemingly nowhere into a position right behind my feet.

As I try to avoid the slow demon lady's grasping hands, I trip.

Mukade Joro's claws dig into my chest armor as she grabs me up like a ragdoll and pulls me in close to her ghastly face. As she holds me, tendrils of hair begin to sprout from her head at the same time as flesh grows over her bones. When her mouth and tongue and eyes appear, I cringe away instictively. She looks at me like a prized toy, licking a long tongue over thin lips and sharp fangs.

"Yeeesss," she whispers, dragging out the word in an almost sensual way. The growth of organs and muscle and skin has slowed significantly, almost to a crawl at this point, but she does not seem to notice as she all but drags me nearer to the well.

"Fiiiinally, my precioussss jewel," Mukade Joro coos at me, lovingly it seems. "I have youuu, and you shhhall return my beauuuutyyyy! My sssstrengthhhh!"

She is excited and I am terrified. Shouldn't my touch burn her? How is she holding onto me with such a grip? I begin to struggle in her grasp because none of this is following the path of what I know and I don't want to die again. I hear her cackle at me before a second set of hands grab at my legs, pinning me tightly.

"No, nooo, dear jewel," she tuts mockingly, one of her other skeletal hands reaching up to slide a finger over my cheek. I jerk away as much as I can but she just cackles again, lost in her glee at having me in her grasp. "You are miiiiine now," she coos at me as if trying to shush a fussy child,

She takes me and turns back to the well, dragging the both of us over the edge until we fall into the void. In the darkness, I can see the dried and cracked dirt bottom and, for a moment, I wonder if I'm just going to die here from a broken neck. Light sputters and sparks at the edges of my vision though, and soon it envelops us both.

I can feel something churning my stomach and bubbling at the back of my throat, hot and burning like bile, but I quickly discover it to be the energy of the Shikon as I am tossed aside with an ear-piercing shriek. There are no walls in this space for me to hit, so I just fall a bit faster and farther away from the half-formed centipede youkai as she screams obscenities at me. Her bone hands begin to turn to ash, her restored flesh decaying rapidly again until she just simply does not exist anymore.

I am alone, falling at the speed of time in a star-studded abyss.


End file.
